I'm proud to announce the arrival of the Blender Network - the official Blender Foundation partnership program for professionals!
The Blender Network will support these professionals by providing them much better visibility to prospective clients. In addition, it will actively support their business with promotion (with events, press etc.), and by helping companies find the right Blender service for them. This is also why the membership is not free - there will be a lot of actual work done, which needs to be paid for. The Blender Network and the Blender Foundation decide together on how the money will be spent.
Ton Roosendaal, Chairmain of the Blender Foundation, writes:
I am convinced that the Blender Network initiative will be as important for Blender's future as the open movies and the game we made over the past 5 years. If we want to keep growing and keep investing in quality, we need to build a community of professionals specifically based on their own requirements.
What does the Network site offer?
Network members can maintain their own profile which includes detailed information about the services that they offer, contact information and samples of their work. Visitors can browse all this information and search very accurately: do you need a Blender consultant in Rome? You've got it. A Blender Core developer with knowledge of compositing? No problem!
In addition, members can indicate that they have done business with each other. This way, you can see who has strong ties and good reputation within the community.
What are the future plans?
The Network site is not ready yet - far from it. The networking component will become larger, members will be able to upload more types of media to their page (Video, interactive 3D), and they will be able to maintain a list of projects, for example.
More services are planned and there's a still lot of room for your feedback. Contact [email protected] if you'd like to present your suggestions!
SIGGRAPH Special: 50% Discount
Sign up during SIGGRAPH 2012 and receive a 50% discount on the first year of your membership. Well okay, we'll give you a little more time in case you're traveling - sign up before Sunday, August 12, 8pm GMT+1 (Amsterdam time) and you'll pay only half the regular membership.
Thanks!
The last couple of weeks have been hectic, and I'd like to thank the people who helped me out: Ton, for pushing the concept for this release further than I first thought feasible, Evert from Streeff for creating the graphic design, and our team of dedicated testers for relentlessly pointing out bugs and
Links
92 Comments
First!!! Amazing happy to see the website online!!
Nice to see the site online. I think that this is a greate opportunity for blender and all the professional users of it. :)
Only thing that i dont like, is the webdesign of that site. It does not look like a professional.
I have to agree. It's great that blender network is online, but it doesn't look too good. I think that graphic designer got too carried away with the fonts. Too many fonts that don't match together very well. Most of them are too tall/streched. I don't like the colors scheme (blue background against pink?). And the layout is too chaotic. There aren't many buttons and menus and yet it is hard to distinguish what is most important on the site. And... two search boxes that do the same thing? What for? I'm maybe harsh, but I really like the overall concept of blender network and I'm interested in joininig it in the near future, but it has to look profesional to work as it meant to.
Totally agree with you ;-)
Please explain to me Bart why my previous comment was marked as abuse and is now hidden.
It was constructive in every way possible. It was not abusive at all.
You are welcome to mail me directly if you do not want to discuss it here.
Ehm sorry - I didn't delete anything :-/ I can't find anything in the spam or deleted box either, so I'm not sure what happened here. Would you care to try again?
Bizarre, right after I posted it was up and then discuss said it was flagged as abusive and awaiting moderation and then it was gone.
I just had a few suggestions for the site's design. I don't think the design fails completely but there are a few issues that doesn't look as good as it should.
Home page looks super crowded and boxed in due to no negative space. There is also not enough breathing space on the other pages. This will all be solved by some degree by getting rid of the blue background and just making it white.
The blue background just does not work. The blue colour works fine just with small amounts. Like the texts you have.
Perhaps the search bar could go to that widget column bottom right. Anyway, I don't want to nit pick.
Good job on the project all together.
I think the reason my original message was deleted was because I had a link to an image.
I did a quick mock-up with the suggested changes. I can send you the link if you are interested.
Please do - you can mail it to [email protected]. Thanks!
I sort of have to agree, the design of the site is just OK - it's nothing special and I also have to agree that the font isn't great.
Need to get in. Need to get in!!!
Did you just Blendernation yourself? LOL.
I hadn't really considered that but ehm... yeah. Damn :)
LOL, that's awesome.
The server's getting hammered and I'm doing my best to tune it. Sorry :)
Is a very interesting idea, but taking a look at the page it ofers very few information about the people in. I think that some examples or links about the peoples work would be very usefull
Good. I'm looking forward to this. Congrats to Blender Foundation!
Exciting times, indeed! :D Even though it isn't something I will be needing personally at the moment, it will hopefully be a great driving force for making Blender more accepted in the professional arena!
hopefully also believe in Spanish por favor
Fantastic! I definitely might sign up at that price! :D
one things to help blender to be more accepted in professional: I start to check what is asked for subscribe and see they ask for portfolio as " ... information about your Blender related work". I have 11years of experience in 3d but wihk others software like XSI and Maya. I don't have for now any stuff that really show all my experiences done with Blender because I don't have the time and opportunity for this. But like all professionnal artist know, the tool don't make the artist. If you have the experiences and do good job with "commercial software" , you can do good think too if you really want in Blender. For that , we can put our works and works experiences "not related to Blender" on this website ? ( but in the optic you know Blender ( or learn it) and searching for opportunity to work on real project with it )
I think it's fine to include other artwork too (some people are putting up pencil drawings, for example). But as a client, if I was looking for specific Blender skills, then I'd want to see at least a few examples.
It's probably relative to the size and the experiences of the studio, but everywhere I'm working , they don't look for "maya skills" or "xsi skills" but just for " your skills". If you are a good in modeling , animation , shading/texture or lighting, no matter software you use , it's just a question of couples of hours or days to learn the base of the new software and do the same quality in it. All software have the same base, after that is just a question of tool or features to do it faster and easier. When it's time for the client to hire and ask " I see you did something nice in XSI on your portefolio , are you be able to do it in Blender too ?" it's to the artist to be really honest and said " yes, for sure, I know Blender well" , "probably, left me some time to see" or "no , I don't know how to do that in Blender". The only "departement" where I see some really specific 3D software skill is in FX , and many big studio search for experienced FX artist in Houdini , because FX are particular and Houdini too :)
Agreed. It's much more relevant in other categories such as development, training, publishing and consulting. Still, we're not the Maya Network, so it's good to see some relevancy when people sign up ;-)
I just talk about this point because I'm probably interested to sign up sometime for finding little contract to do in Blender but I don't have a lot of blender stock to show except my molecular script and couples of videos of test on my youtube channel.
ooohh and sorry I forgot to say : it's a really nice project
Expensive for corporate. I own a small studio. Blender is a little, but beautiful and important part of the business. €250/year is big investment for us and we can't see how it will 'come back'.
Get something, give a little something back I say. Besides its still within the spirit of open source...
It's way too expensive and I'm afraid it won't gather pros but people that can afford getting in.
I think the pros they refer to are those that make money from Blender at a high end level.
@tinonetic correct. If you're just working on your own, then a freelance account is fine. You decide yourself if it's time for a corporate account. At this moment it doesn't offer many advantages, but there area some 'power' features planned for corporate accounts.
@5a2d4930e368bf5fb4c5637c973ae3d7:disqus correct. If you're just working on your own, then a freelance account is fine. You decide yourself if it's time for a corporate account. At this moment it doesn't offer many advantages, but there area some 'power' features planned for corporate accounts.
€50 euro sounds much more reasonable indeed. Still I have my doubts whether being able to pay for a membership makes one a pro. Nevertheless I hope it'll be succesfull.
@disqus_HkXCzhE7yG:disqus : Then order now to get a 50% discount!
25 euro for a year of advertising is really not that much.
Good point but I still don't understand why should I. I don't need any
more recognition and I don't see how this site would help me finding a
case (hoping for working in Blender environment only nowadays is a
suicide). It's just weird. But I understand those who give it a try - they just don't know what Blender Network is really going to be (in theory it's like "do
you need a Blender consultant in Rome? You’ve got it. A Blender Core
developer with knowledge of compositing? No problem!"; so far it's just
wishful thinking; I haven't seen many job offers for blenderheads and I
don't believe that out of sudden they will appear here). We'll see.
You wouldn't believe how many requests like this land at the Blender Institute. All this knowledge was in Ton's head so far, but from now on all these questions will be redirected to the Network site.
If those "'power' features" can include "licensed" addons(plugins) that make sharing data with other professional tools fully possible (such as DWG import/export plugin),
€250/year fee would be more than worth it. Do you have any plans for that?
Hi George, no, any features will be limited to the Blender Network website itself. We will not be releasing specific tools.
I think you're judging a bit too quickly. Nobody here knows how much business this will draw on so it's too soon to make a judgement. Besides, the money is going to support blender. For me, it's a very small price to pay to have this program.
Well €250/year is just too much for me, I work as a 3D graphic but I just cannot afford this kind of money. Perhaps if I had a studio of my own but as an employee it's too much (especially when the website is not ready yet - far from it- and nobody knows how many people will participate). In Poland 250 euro is often 50% of how much you earn every month.
There is also a freelance account for 50€ but what are the differences in those two account types? I can't find info on the website.
250 a year is the corporate package, aimed at studios. For one person that is too much, but if your one person then you'd get the freelance package 50/year. Much more affordable, especially when considering how much a yearly license is for some of the other programs that are out there are.
No Academic accounts for students? :(
No, sorry. The Blender Network is only meant for people who are making money with a living. If you're a student and you're earning our way through college, then you're considered a Freelancer.
GOD BLESS ALLMIGHTY ,all of YOU !
Looks cool! Can't wait! This will be really good for the community.
But just so you know, the monster freelance companies (like elance, odesk and possibly rentacoder) don't charge for membership. But this way actually might be better, they take a pretty huge cut and I think its more geared to the people looking for the services rather than the workers.
Yes, we discussed that option as well, but that means you're positioning yourself between clients and contractors. The Blender Foundation stands for Open culture, in this case: we provide the information (which costs some time and money to maintain, unfortunately), and after that the market is free to do whatever they want.
With all honesty- if you are aiming at professionals, meaning people with experience on market and working knowledge of it- they already DO have contacts because they've been around, they got through all the stages. While I love the idea (especially because it serves promoting Blender so well), I'd rather pay share of contract fee then fixed (thou low) price for something that is 1. at early stages of development 2. offers only a promise or in other words- a potential of gaining job/ publicity/ whatever other bonuses are there.
I storngly agree with that. Moreover freelancer's workflow does not have to fit clients workflow and usually he needs to sell all kind of files (like .max with V-ray shaders). Blender Network seems a bit hermetic but who knows, perhaps it'll fill the gap in the market (if such exists). What I don't like is that PROFESSIONAL word, like - come on, paying for a membership doesn't make you a pro. Like other people here I'm a bit sceptical whether joining BN will result in finding a case for freelancer (nowadays you have to look everywhere and fit non-Blender client expectations), I just don't think Blender is that widely used in companies workflow. Well it's an interesting concept for so-called pros but it doesn't look professional itself yet.
I think the direction is the opposite than mookie pointed, if I understood well: You do contract work with Blender, then you fit in the Blendernetwork target people; so it's for this reason that I don't consider this like a promise, but more like a boost on your chances to work with Blender and become better connected. If you never worked professionaly with Blender, Blendernetwork isn't going to do magic tricks for you to reach that, and do this kind of work for the first time could be a matter completely up to you.
Also want to comment about that, excluding people living in countries where we all know there's less acquiring power, it seems a little bit fun to me to see so many people complaining on the fees for Blendernetwork, but look at all techies around me spending hundreds and hundreds of euros in gadgets or other sometimes silly things. So even when this people that I see is not necessarily the same who complains here, it comes to my mind that this issue is purely a priorities issue, and not a fair debate about what's really fair to pay for Blendernetwork. Blendernetwork costs a year even not two times what DVDs from Blender Foundation costs, and I didn't hear complains about this kind of trade. And paying my membership costs for the early birds until August 12 what I get paid for one hour of my work. This is here in Spain, so obviously in other countries the freelance rates will be much higher so Blendernetwork even more affordable.
So my """two cents""" is give this a chance and let's see if this was worthy. Regards,
Raimon
Awesome to hear! Any news on the reactions over in LA at SIGGRAPH? Or is it too early to tell?
Anyway, here's hoping I can someday be part of this network ;)
From what I've heard the reception at the Birds of a Feather meeting was excellent. The tradeshow won't start until later today, so we'll see ;-)
I wish I was talented enough to be a part of the network.
You don't have to be talented, just make money with Blender and pay the fee.
Well, I do the first one from time-to-time. But nothing like most of these guys.
Great idea and I very hope it will be sucessfull !
If you wanna reach real professionals artists and I mean REAL professionals there are a few things that is very important from my point of view:
-Every media (website, prints, renderings, modells, tutorials etc.) has to look asolutely professional (no semiprofessional scratches from hobbiests, no bad modelled modells, no bad looking materials etc.)
-To reach that goal you have to do some kind of quality management. Before a media gets online it has to be controlled of it's qualitypoints
For example: There are alot of 3D modelldatabases to find on the internet. But the only one I take for serious is designconnected.com because of the quality of the models, because of the professional layout and programming of the website, because of the contemporary design of the modells.
But I'm sure I'm just talking for nothing, you already know all those things and mostly do it already ;-)
Kind regards
Alain
Yes, I'm reviewing each application and will be keeping an eye on the content on the site, advising people on how they can improve their chances with better content.
So the content is not really moderated? You won't decline anybody?
I'll only push back if someone's work looks *really* amateurish, mainly because I think it would be a waste of their money and it wouldn't reflect well on the professionality of the Network.
I'm really, really excited for this! Thanks so much!!
Great news! All blender professionals in one place.
Dont think that fees are expensive.
cool !
Which CMS did you use to make this site ?
TYPO3. Open Source, of course.
Does Academic include home schoolers?
Academic is only aimed at teachers or researchers, not students. Is that what you meant?
Yes. This would mean the parents are the teachers. The reason I am asking is that I believe Blender to be a great tool to teach children about Geometry, math, physics, art, and much more.
I would love to share this with the homeschooling community for parent/teachers.
Let me know. Thank you :)
I don't know enough about how that works - I'd like to know more about it, maybe we can exchange ideas via email or skype? Probably not this week though - signup is CRAZY busy, I already have a pile of 100 registrations to work my way through :)
Congrats on your success :). I will contact you in a week or two. Thank you :)
The only way I am seeing that this amount of money would be worthy (it is a LOT here in brasil) would be if it did my work of looking for companies. I don't see any real benefits there besides the statement that the sites costs a lot (any site does, but there is rarely a site with this price for membership).
How will the advertisement work? How will you enter the brasilian market, for instance? How will you advertise this service among companies and reach them? Or all that this is going to be is to just stay there hoping that, for some reason, companies themselves will come looking for you, instead of you, looking for them?
By companies I mean our clients. Not us, your potential clients.
It's only R$10,50 per month, not that much if you work professionally with Blender I think.
But I think that it'd be cool if we knew exactly how it is going to work before we put our money in it.
Umm.. you didn´t pay for that website design, did you? It doesn´t give a professional vibe at all, feels stressed. Color scheme for color blind? :P Sorry if I´m a bit harsh, But considering how important this Blender network will be, it needs to hit you in the gut immediately,and this one doesn´t. The project itself is commendable.
Sorry you feel that way. We did a lot of testing and this is the first time I hear such a negative comment. I'll consider building in a color switch for you ;-)
Well, you have another few comments further down here. Maybe I was to harsh and not complimenting on what´s good enough. I really like the artist profile pages, but the rest looks a little bland to be honest. The pink on white text strikes me as an odd choice as well, and font, meh.. anyhoo. Good luck on the network, and I hope to be a part of it some day! :)
I wish Blender Network the best in the years to come. Blender and its community is just getting better.
Regarding the new website. Totally agree with you. Not 'corporate' enough. Maybe the project budget is low and manned by one person so it seems the layout is intended to be very very low maintenance. It's not just the color, It's as if the blendernetwork has nothing to offer. Bland in layout, style and content. Needs more ideas. Although I understand the precious time people invested on this.
I hope that money gathered from Blender Network membership will invested wisely, we don't want that all end in somebodies pocket.
Absolutely. Ton and I have to agree on how we spend every cent. I assume you trust both of us ;-)
Cool!
Which CMS did you use to make this website ?
Yup this is the way forward!
Get professional, get connected!
Might just get me the freelance! :D
Nice on guys!
The network is a great idea, but that web design is horrible! The narrow font used for the headings is somehow hard to read, and just looks wrong next to the plain Arial text below it. And that cheap pink belongs only on an 'adult' site ;-) On the positive side, I'm VERY glad to see you didn't choose another painful-to-read white on black colour scheme.
I agree. They should ask a web designer for help. This looks outdated..
I think it is a great idea. Showing that Blender is a product that can be used in a professional environment is a giant leap towards making this product a viable competitor to the other packages out there.
I wish I saw some benefit to paying 50 euro per year. I can't see many others seeing such a benefit either. I would be think it would be far easier to initially draw people in by making it free to begin with.
Blender artists already exists for that. This is for people and companies who earn a living from Blender.
Apart from anything else, the fee is a good way of ensuring that people who apply are serious about it.
Hey, I did saw this new and my first impression was "Wow! Finally they have done that!" then i opened the link and i am really sorry that i need to say this, but it looks so horrible. :(
Who ever designed it, i have to say to you, that you are not the loser even though that site does not look so cool at now, I actually think that you are very skilled in design, but I also think that your design needs little bit simplification.
If you are going to release it in the siggraph, it must be done in the longest way. I mean with that, that the site needs lot of more work.
Otherwise everyone will laught to blender network... And it would be a disaster.
So I created a new layout (no one asked me to do that).
Its not the best I have done, cause its done really fast in two hours, but if you wanna continue for designing your site and take some ideas from my design, I would be really happy about that.
So here is the layout as jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5904620/Blender_network/leiska.jpg
And here it is in the photoshop format. It is done with ps cs5, so i can just hope that you could open it somehow if you have not that.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5904620/Blender_network/leiska.psd
But, please! What ever you do, do not release it in that way it is now. It won't make good image for blender.
Sorry, but your design is as bad as the existing one.
Joke? Please be serious, even no desent portfoliopage. Design looks 15 years old. Network? A list of people is no network. It should hit you in the face with jawdropping 3d designs, tutorials, reel studio stories, please be serious, were 2012, ist just a list with 3d wannabees or want-to-join-the-clubbers...
Dam, i had great expectation about it, hope you review it,
blender diserves better...
An elegant design is truly not too much to ask. I hope that it is in the
minds of the guys responsible to improve the typohraphy, colours and
layout. I am confident they have that in mind. It was done under
pressure, after-all.
You probably have thought of these, but off my head:
- in the future, having random profile thumbnails helps in making the site look alive and active.
- same with random, gallery images. Since content will be QA-controlled,
I imagine these will always be good quality and appealing.
- if acceptable, to show-off pipelines or briefs/commentaries used by
professionals who wish to share/feature a high-quality project they did.
And probably moderate how much the same person can be featured, so that
process is fair.
- Extending from the previous, if allowable, accept any "guest" features
from, say a high-quality artist who used Blender but may not
necessarily be in the network. Like a contest winner. It may even be a
prize idea for those who (understandably) cannot afford but deserve
limelight for a good piece of work
- if it wont dilute the network, have feeds from all over the
blender-verse appear within user home-pages/panels, like how the
Blender3d.org site syndicates all Blender-worthy(hehehe...Blender-speak)
news....Blender Projects, Dev Notes, Events etc
- Dont know how or if its a good idea, but we need more developer
recognition or encouragement. Even a crowdsourcing feature for any
willing contributions to commonly requested features like Crowd
Simulation etc(like a mini GSOC thingie). Since the Blender Network
converges pros (including developer), if people decide to contribute,
knowing they are contributing to known professionals helps. Possibly, if
something is developed
- I think I mentioned another time that sponsoring contests with
membership is another way of giving those who are "visibly good" but
unable to afford, a deserving chance at membership(freelance maybe)
Ok, I've run out of gas.
I mean well though.
Congrats and good luck!
Why not design the site to be more in tune with Blender.org? The only thing I would change from blender.org is the blocks of text, better to have black on white.
It's a great idea and a no-brainer. Once the site link gets to agency resource managers, and there is a decent amount of 'bread and butter' work on the site it will probably fly.
No one website approach is ever going to satisfy everyone, so perhaps that is a red-herring as an issue, when the proof of the pudding is to ultimately connect people for paying work
Fantastic idea. We'll met there. XD
Happy opening, guys! :)
I don't like to leave harsh comments but I need to do this now for sure.
The design reminds me some "web-plugs"... like it was some site and it's founders forgot to paid for hosting or decided to dump it at all. Everything is too simple and "dry" and the logo is a bit strange (doesn't gives any feeling of Blender and it's Network). No any simple "cozy effects". Just like you've dumped your pretty jeans and started to wear a business costume suddenly. Or a chemistry lab's suit... something like this.
I suggest you some orange-black theme... some other elements to "smooth the edges". Something that will be hinting on Blender.org. It's a good association I think.
The design needs a serious re-research - IMHH(harsh)O.